The Difference between Hiragana and Katakana Simplified

Japanese has two phonetic writing systems known as Hiragana and Katakana. Two writing systems sound confusing. Don’t worry though, they are basically the same alphabet but just with different symbols.

INDEX

When should I use Hiragana?

You can consider Hiragana as the default Alphabet to write in Japanese. You can write in Hiragana for everyday native Japanese words or in place of Kanji.

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Native Japanese

Native Japanese words are those that existed before Japan had Kanji. In other words, any word that does not come from old Chinese or any other language.

Okurigana

Many Japanese words have both Kanji and Hiragana in them. Most of the time these are Verbs or Adjectives. The Kanji part of the word is usually the root of the word. In contrast, the suffix or inflecting part of the word is written in Hiragana. The Hiragana in these Verbs or Adjectives are called Okurigana.

美味しい (oishii) – tasty
食べる (taberu) – to eat

Above, the orange Hiragana are Okurigana.

For help with Pronunciation

Finally, you can write any word in Hiragana when you don’t know the Kanji. For example, you could write the word for tasty all in Hiragana.

おいしい (oishii) – tasty

In some cases like the word above, even when Kanji exists and people know it they still may write in Hiragana.

Or, you may even write the Hiragana above the Kanji. These Hiragana characters above Kanji are called furigana. They are used to show the pronunciation of hard to read words.

美味おいしい (oishii) – tasty

When should I use Katakana?

The Japanese language uses Katakana for words that don’t quite feel 100% Japanese. That could be for loanwords, scientific classification, or even for words representing sounds.

Foreign loanwords

The number one main purpose of Katakana is to write foreign loan words. That is any word from any language other than Japanese. This of course excludes words or characters introduced from China through Kanji.

Words for Sounds

Onomatopoeia are words for sounds in Japanese. For example, ワンワン (wan-wan) for a dog barking and ニャンニャン (nyan-nyan) for a cat meowing. These words can also be written in Hiragana though. Katakana though emphasises the word more as a sound.

Non-Standard Accents

In Manga for example sometimes when a non-native speaker says something, it will be written in Katakana. That is to show that they are speaking with an accent. You may also see Katakana used for robots, monsters or anything else when the intention is to say that the Japanese spoken has some non-standard accent.

Scientific names

Scientific Terminology is often written in Katakana. For example, if you are describing a cat or trying to talk about how it is classified scientifically you would write ネコ (neko). This is in Katakana but in everyday speech, you would write it in Kanji as 猫 or maybe Hiragana as ねこ.

Sometimes for Emphasis

Finally, sometimes words usually written in Kanji or Hiragana maybe written in Katakana for emphasis. It could be for ads, or other situations where someone wants to emphasize something.